a note to any prospective employers.
I'm going to cross-post this, because I'm a jerk, and also I'd like input on this Real Problem Of Our Times. Originally posted on MySpace (shut up). Sorry to the unfortunate among you who are friends with me through various electronic media.

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So, my dad called me frantically today to warn me about a dire situation he'd just read about in a magazine. His girlfriend considers herself web-savvy (aside from the fact that she thinks her ex-husband could hack into her computer while it is not connected to the internet or on.), and she had tipped him off to something (I assume) the kids have known about for a long time but that apparently people who still get their news from magazines are just finding out: prospective employers might look at your MySpace or Facebook to find information about you! Realistic calculations as to how many employers are actually doing this aside, Dad begged me not to put any "political opinions" or "satire" (actually! oh, Dad.) on my MySpace, for fear that someone considering my merits as an employee might find something distasteful or disagreeable and thus elect not to hire me.

Here's the thing: Let's say by some ridiculous chance someone is considering hiring me. And let's say this person decides, snickering to him or herself, that MySpace will give a picture of me as I would present myself to friends, and not to an employer. Well Done!, firstly, and secondly what you see is me. I will not apologize for it or tune it down. If you're startled and dismayed to find that I am bisexual, love taking silly pictures of myself and my boyfriend engaged in sober; PG-rated debauchery, have an obsession with English rock band Queen and music in general, have a very un-white-girl love for the hip-hops; and am articulate, engaging, witty, kind, and creative; then I have here registered that I very intentionally show that to the world; that I am well aware of what information can be garnered about me through the wide, wide inter-nets. (I also enjoy artfully used run-on sentences, parenthetical asides, and precarious punctuation.) Gracious, what would we do if twenty-somethings had priorities outside of work and being successful, and indeed, personalities? (This is another post, but I hate the culture of twentysomething "success" that seems to permeate large urban areas and also my Dad and large swaths of America's immigrant communities. It is especially prevalent in this soulless, voteless seat of power some call Tha Distrikt.)

Anyway, all I've shown here is personality. No photographs of me drunkenly making out with someone of a sex to which I wouldn't undrunkenly be attracted for the cheap attentions of men (and if you paid attention at all, you'd know I'm truly (as in not-solely-for-the-enjoyment-of-men-- screw you, Girls Gone Wild, for cheapening my sexuality) bisexual without alcohol anyway!). You will see no digital glitter ITALIAN PRINCESS graphics, no annoying song for you to suffer the first three seconds of before you find its embedded location and press pause on the player. No horrible HTML making my page unreadable, with links to virii and no background of my most favoritest designer purse logo. No idiot friends commenting about what a great weed-bong-naked-sex-whiskey party we had last weekend. For the record, I rarely drink, and I think logo-purses are slightly cooler than carrying your shit around in a plastic bag you received free-with-your-purchase at Rite Aid. But if i did care about that stuff, I haven't shown it here, on the internet. I sometimes say doo-doo words. Furthermore, as you can see, I know the proper usages of "they're," "there," and "their", and i know that "ur" is an ancient Mesopotamian trading center, not a fucking replacement for English words. I know how to pluralize nouns-- without using apostrophes. I'd think those things would be more important to this imaginary "web-savvy" (in the style of Dad's girlfriend) AwesomeBoss than whether or not I agree with the Bush Administration's stance on abortion (I don't!). What I'm thrusting at here (uncomfortable, slightly sexual choice of words intentional) is that what you see, I have chosen to present. I like myself and think you should too.

And if you've been given the thankless, soulless, slightly dirty task of combing MySpace for information about interviewees, I'm sorry. If you've seen my boring, plain MySpace, and because of my personality, you don't find me employable (why wouldn't you? I'm a hard, loyal worker and a quick thinker. A good writer with a basic knowledge of HTML. Motivated Self-Starter! Ugh.), perhaps you will find one of my more milquetoast peers who was willing to delete his or her harmless online representations of him or herself in order to appear more employable. Be well, and enjoy your search, because I don't want to work for you anyway. However, if it was my masturbatory bloviating what scared you off, well, it's a fair cop. I'm a cool chick though, a cool chick who needs a job and isn't willing to sacrifice having a personality.

Sorry, dad. I want to make you proud, hopefully (for you) I can do it by being true to myself. If not, it's your fault for letting mom raise me that way. See what I did there?


Also, this is partially why I have an expensive degree and work at a Chinese restaurant.
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Post Script: I know they look at LiveJournals too, sometimes. That's a whole other fish, but in general what I have here, while it may be a little personal, is not really all that mind-blowing. Also, the gist of the article was that Facebook and MySpace are the main focii of this sort of investigation, and MySpace is the main focus of my ire and the original place i posted this. Here's a link to my MySpace.

In general: I haven't been well. That's for another post.